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Friday, 15 November 2013

EFCC arrests Gov Sule Lamido’s two sons over alleged N10b fraud

According to a report by Premium Times The Economic
and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has arrested two sons of Jigawa state
governor, Sule Lamido, over an alleged N10billion fraud.

Aminu and Mustapha Lamido
were arrested on Thursday in Kano and flown to Abuja on Friday morning, and are
currently being interrogated at the EFCC headquarters in Abuja by a crack team
of detectives.

The arrest of the governor’s sons, insiders say, is in
furtherance of the investigation that commenced in December 2012 when Aminu
Sule Lamido was arrested at the Mallam Aminu Kano Airport en route Cairo, Egypt
for failure to declare the $50,000 he had on him.

Although Aminu has since been
prosecuted and convicted by a Federal High Court in Kano, investigation as to
how he came by the money has led investigations to uncover a web of money
laundering in which billions of naira from Jigawa state govt accounts are
funnelled into the accounts of companies run by the Jigawa state governor and
his 2sons.

Over
N10billion is said to have been transferred from Jigawa state government
accounts into the accounts in which Sule Lamido and his two sons have interest
from 2007 till date.
The Commission is said to have traced these transfers to 10 companies where
Lamido and sons are directors and signatories to the account.

The account of these companies received huge cash inflow between 2007 and 2013,
a period that coincide with the tenure of Sule Lamido as governor of Jigawa
state. For instance in Bamaina Aluminium where Sule Lamido and his two sons are
directors, investigations revealed that the company’s account controlled by
Mustapha as signatory received total credit of N1.52billion between January
2010 and August 2013. It recorded a total debit of the same amount, with
Mustapha and other companies in which Lamido and his sons are directors, being
the beneficiaries.

In the same vein, Bamaina Holdings Limited’s account with the governor as sole
signatory received a total of N1.19billion between February 2007 and July 2013.
About N1billion was paid from this account into accounts of companies
controlled by the governor and his sons.

Massive lodgements were also discovered in the account of Bamaina Company
Nigeria limited controlled by Mustapha as sole signatory from Bamaina
Alluminium. Between January 2010 and July 2013, the account received over
N500million.

From the account of Rawda Integrated Services Limited controlled by Mustapha,
there have also been massive movement of funds to another company run by Sule
Lamido, Speeds International Limited. Speeds’ account recorded a turnover ofN2.2billion
between January 2007 and February 2010.

In the account of Rawda with a new generation bank investigators discovered the
movement of N2.6billion to an unknown signatory.

That account recorded over one hundred withdrawals running to over N600milion
in cash between November 2007 and April 2008.

Saby Integrated Services Nigeria Limited, another company owned by Lamido
received over N730million from several Jigawa State government agencies between
June 2010 and August 2010.